LOVE - A CIRCUMCISED HEART
LOVE - A CIRCUMCISED HEART
Deut 30:6 - Ps. 34:15
Sunday, February 14, 2016, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
One of the great blessings of life is to be in love, to have been loved and being loved. I am not speaking here solely of marriage. There are people who have never married, but know the joy of love and being loved by parents, friends, family and the love of God.
There are also people who have never experienced love.
A few weeks before my husband died, I told him he was a blessed man. I said, “Don you are greatly blessed in life because you have been loved.”
We know that marriage is a dance; at times falling in and out of love; and even in and out of “like” with your mate. However, when you married, you made a covenant with the Living God and your marriage became a living entity in heaven.
From this union of love and covenant, the “Lord your God has promised to circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deut. 30:6)
Psalm 34:15: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.,"
To live is to enjoy life to the fullest. Be happy in the work of your hands. Rejoice and be glad to enjoy work. Be happy and at peace in your home. Be content with a grateful heart.
This “Agape” love of God is completely unselfish. It is patient and gracious. It is neither jealous nor proud. It knows how to behave itself in the home and the local assembly.
This love does not insist on its own rights or its own way. This new nature is not touchy. It holds no past wrongs on the dusty shelves of a fleshly arsenal. It holds no grudges.
Love is easy to talk about and easy to preach about. The hard part is to walk in it day in and day out in the family, church and community.
“…God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation (11 Cor. 5:19)
Love rejoices not at iniquity, but rejoices with the truth. Love is totally connected with truth. Truth is reality. Truth is where it’s at. So, if I speak words of living truth to you, that is the love you crave.
Since love is truthful, then there should be no deceit, or manipulation with your husband or wife, your children, brother or sister in Christ or with your pastor or the pastor with the flock.
“Love from the center of who you are: don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. (Romans 12:9-10 TM)
Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one’s self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.”(Thomas Hughes)
“Those who have loved together have been drawn close; they who have struggled together are forever linked; but they who have suffered together have known the most sacred bond of all.” (Anonymous quote)
The greatest stumbling blocks to love is selfishness, pride, stubbornness, and “I want my own way,” or “My way or the highway.”
Americans are very spoiled people. Most of us are blessed with our own homes whether houses or apartments. We have our own space, interests, toys, and time. Loving someone means making space and time in your life to fellowship with, care about and includes that person or persons in your free time.
I enjoyed being with my husband more than anyone else I knew. I certainly enjoyed our children, family and friends; but my favorite time was when we were together. It wasn’t because he had a lot to say because he didn’t talk that much. After being married a long time, you don’t have to talk.
Ladies most men I know do not like a “chatty woman”.
Song 2:15: “…the little foxes spoil the vines…”
Whether in marriage, friendship or church fellowship, it is the little foxes who spoil the vines.
The foxes are things that hinder. They abort the seed. These foxes sneak in under the leaves. These have affinity with the serpents, and are known for their craftiness, especially in playing dead. They were mentioned by Ezekiel to be false prophets (including false words of condemnation – Prov. 17:15.) It is those little insignificant things that we have allowed to feed unmolested among our vines. These habits, words, or weaknesses (which appear as nothing in themselves) are deceitful and cute, treacherous and sly: wasted time, foolish talking, lack of diligence, neglect of prayer. The fruit of life is full of promise. If unwatched or unguarded now, the little things can ruin it all.
All criticism, condemnation, naysayers, negative talk, unkindness, gossip, tale-bearing, stirring of strife, false judgments, etc. are the voices of false prophets. How do I know they are false prophets? Because, those voices are never from God. When the Lord corrects us, he does so with truth. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” God’s truth will not be a dagger. It will have the effect of liberating us from our pain and our hurt.
“Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.” (Romans 12: 13-16) TM.
“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” (Ps. 34:1-2)…”Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.” (Ps. 34: 13-14)
Our love is feeble at best and the most generous can be sparing in sacrifices. Human love is often fickle. But the greatest hindrances could not overcome the Love of God. The fickleness and cowardice of the disciples and his friends could not cool it. The malignant hatred of Christ’s enemies could not destroy it. The waters of death could not dampen it. The shame of the cross could not turn it. The storms of hell could not quench it.
Jesus commanded us that we are to love one another as He loved us. (Jn. 15: 11-13)
Christ does not want us to love one another in fits and starts as the mood strikes us; but instead as he loved us. Love is the chief commandment and encompasses all the others. Christ declares to us the way to keep all the commandments is by observing this single commandment. “As I have loved you, so love ye one another.”
John 15:16: “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, I may give it to you.”
This means, “I, Christ, will give it to you.”
Jesus says, You did not approach Me, offering love and friendship. I approached you and loved you. So how could I abandon you later? Furthermore I appointed you that you should go---grow, increase, spread---and bring forth fruit.” Here Jesus clearly portrays Himself as the one who does the pruning.
15:3: “”You are clean through the word I have spoken to you.”
Only after we have blossomed and borne fruit will He give us whatever we shall ask. If we do not bear fruit, we receive nothing. “You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss” (James 4:3).
It is wise to pray, “Thy will be done”, “Lord show me how to pray.”
15:17-19: “These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus is instilling in the disciples and us the need to love one another. Hatred and persecution are hard to bear and cause bitter grief. Bitterness and grief becomes “little foxes that spoil the vine.”
We must honor and esteem all men because they are humans. We must do good to all, even those who wrong us. The pendulum of New Testament Covenant hangs on the love that Christ died for us.
Galatians 5:13: “You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
Mutual strife among Christians if persisted in will cause Christian churches to be ruined by their own hands. If Christians make the church “barracuda run”, what can be expected but that the God of Love should deny his grace to them, and the Spirit of Love should depart from them and an evil Sprit should prevail?
“Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Our church has been known far and wide that we are a church of love. Yet, after we moved, our hearts as a church body has been tested “in love”. We have been challenged on many levels. I cry out to God that we as a church body will repent and humble our hearts in love.
Rev. 2: 1-5: “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write; these things says He that holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, I know your works, and your labor, and your patience, and how you cannot bear them which are evil; and you have tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and have found them liars; and have borne, and have patience for My name’s sake have labored and have not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly, and will remove your candlestick out of its place, except you repent.”
Such love is impossible separate from the Vine. God empowers us by the Holy Ghost. With God all things are possible. We are to keep trying, not weary in well doing, knowing that every time we put love in to action; we are revealing that we belong to Christ and so are changing our world.
The love we have for one another is not in a building. The unity in Christ has to be in our love for him and in that love we will love one another. Marriages and families will come into covenant and communion with that love. Churches will once again come alive in the love of God. Our nation will be restored as One Nation Under God.
The world has no excuse for its sin of hostility toward God. True righteousness and perfect love have been manifest in Christ. Men have experienced and seen the Love of God through the life of one man. Mankind has seen love, but they still do not believe. You also must testify – Raise the standard. We must tell them we love because he first loved us.
“What am I, if I can persuade men that Christ is God, but have no sense of sweetness of love in my heart that he is a God in covenant with my soul? What will it avail me to give testimonies and arguments, if through my unbelief, the wrath of God abides on me, and I have no experience of my own being made the righteousness of God in him? Let us not think we are anything the better for our conviction of the truths of the gospel unless we find the power of truth and love abiding in our own hearts; and have a continual experience of the power of Christ’s blood in our standing before God and our communion with him.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V.